I really hope they introduce a year of social service. No matter if military, police or healthcare, everyone should experience what it feels to serve society at least once.
An interesting aspect I didn’t think of so far was recently brought by German news influencer LeFloid: It adds people to the mix of police and military that wouldn’t normally be there. The far-left tend to avoid them, while the far-right embraces them. This creates a dangerous imbalance between left and right views in these structures and opens up room for radicalisation.
Correct. (Only it goes both ways - the left do get influenced by that mix during their service.)
I’m totally against the military part. It’s just elite people deciding on the lives of people that are not in power. And when the time is right, they’ll take away your freedom of choice and mandate you to join a war. My body my rules.
Since taking office at the beginning of 2023, Defense Minister Boris Pistorius has been thinking about ways to make the Bundeswehr more attractive as a career.
No amount of money or benefits will ever make me a government’s boot licker. Sorry, not sorry
Maybe you personally. But money would actually solve all their problems.
All they provide today is a shitty job with bad pay and no future prospects.
They are not finding enough soldiers because all these soft modern young adults are too selfish for that job, just like companies find no employees because those spoiled brats are too lazy to work. Obviously none of it has to do with not providing reasonable payments of course. So forced labor is the the proposed solution.
cold war 2.0 is as shitty as the first one
TIL they had that.
Austria still does
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Since taking office at the beginning of 2023, Defense Minister Boris Pistorius has been thinking about ways to make the Bundeswehr more attractive as a career.
As journalist and defense and security policy expert Thomas Wiegold told DW: "A major frustration in the Bundeswehr is the bureaucracy.
When Pistorius floated his ideas about conscription in December, he faced a barrage of criticism, including from within his own center-left Social Democratic Party (SPD).
Party co-chair Saskia Esken said it would be impossible to implement mandatory recruitment on an ad hoc basis “because the training units required for this are no longer available.”
“The reintroduction of compulsory service would be a serious encroachment on the freedom of young people who want to orient themselves professionally,” FDP parliamentary group leader Christian Dürr warned in an interview with the Funke Mediengruppe.
“Who would have thought around two years ago that the Bundestag would decide on setting up a special fund of €100 billion for the Bundeswehr against the backdrop of a Russian war of aggression?”
The original article contains 900 words, the summary contains 171 words. Saved 81%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
I believe it is a good idea, not only will it foster a closer feeling of unity and understanding between citizens, it will also be something all citizens have in common, and something you can talk about with anyone.
I am a bit sad that I never got to do it, I did muster, but failed the hearing test, at the time I was relieved, but now, I miss it sort of.
Being forced to risk your life for something you don’t believe in won’t create a feeling of unity.
So you don’t believe in fighting against invasion by a foregin power?
In what reality would Germany ever get invaded and not deserve it?
Why do you think they deserve it now?
They’re sending weapons to Saudi Arabia and Israel. They put sanctions on Afghanistan that are causing a famine. They’re funding Frontex, which kills migrants in the Mediterranean and those who make it get put into concentration camps. And that’s just some of it. The German government are war criminals and serial human rights abusers. Anyone who takes up arms to defend these people is complicit.
And don’t forget Germany never underwent denazification
While I don’t know how accurate this statement is, I do wonder how you would go about doing it now, so far after the war.
Where would you even start?
What criteria would you use to determine the nazi index of every person, what index value would be the threashhold, who would decide on who is nazi and who is nice.
Ok, I agree with ypu on some of the points, and I can see why you disagree with the actions of the military
There’s no invasion?
Correct, I am glad you sre keeping up!
My question was hypothetical.
That’s just dumb. War is good make friends ugh ugh bonk
Technically it is true, war has created plenty of friendships that would not have existed otherwise.
However, that is not what I wrote, I wrote that compulsory millitary service is in general a good idea and that one of benefits is unity and understanding between citizens.
I know, I know, I’m making fun of you
Why are you doing that?
Because you are finding a trivial benefit to something bad and pretending that’s normal. You can go be a scout, have a sports team, a million other things to have camaraderie. But no, you want the fucking military. In a time when everybody is jerking off to war and finding excuses to enact shit you want the army because friends.
Yes you are right on all those points, but the topic was mandatory military service, not scouting, joining a sports team or a million other things.
Is it strange that I focus on the topic of conversation and not list irrelevant topics?
No, not at all, it’s just that you support mandatory military service.
If you want to bring people together create a program to do such thing. Forcing them into a shooting at people and dropping bombs course is the worst thing you could possibly come up with.
The number of people who think conscription is just getting ferried to a frontline with a sandwich and a thumbs up is baffling.
forced labour is slavery
maybe folks would sign up to protect their country if they thought it deserved to be protected, or was doing anything for them
Do you say the same about jury duty?
In my opinion, as long as the system for who is required to participate is fair and equitable, then it’s fair to consider it a civil duty.
the system for who is required to participate has practically never been fair and equitable, jury duty is not comparable to military service, and forced labour is slavery
civil jury duty is a really weird example to use anyway, since civil jury trials are practically non existent outside the USA
I do not see compulsory military service as forced labour, not by a long shot.
In my country when a man turns 18, he has to choose either military service (6 months for rank and file, 9 months for specialists or 12 months for specialist drivers and NCO and officer trainees) or civil service (13 months). Third and very seldomly used option is “total denial”, which means you get to spend 6 months in an open jail.
I very reluctantly chose military service, hoping to get the shortest 6 month option. I ended up serving 12 months in the reserve officer training program, so I do have some experience on the matter.
The population of my country is so small that an army based on professional or voluntary troops is not a possibility. Conscription is the only viable choice.
The service was rarely fun, but it was very effective and extremely valuable. The personal growth I experienced during that year was immeasurable and one year of my life is a very small price to pay to this country that my grandparents’ generation paid a very heavy toll to protect. A country that offers equal rights, universal healthcare and free education for all citizens, amongst many other tax-paid services.
If you do not see your own country worth serving, I feel sad for you. I would gladly give my life to protect mine.
I do not see compulsory military service as forced labour, not by a long shot.
performing labour or 6 months of jail does sound completely unforced
A country that offers equal rights, universal healthcare and free education for all citizens, amongst many other tax-paid services.
i am so glad that you have all of that
If you do not see your own country worth serving, I feel sad for you
i said nothing about whether i see my own country as worth serving, but your pity is appreciated
I would gladly give my life to protect mine
and youll continue to have the option to do so regardless of whether your government continues to threaten its citizens into doing so
performing labour or 6 months of jail does sound completely unforced
Forced labour is very different to military training, IMO. Your choices and freedom are restricted - that cannot be denied - but your days are filled with different training excersizes, not labour as I understand it. And I’ve had my fair share of that too, but by my own choice.
i said nothing about whether i see my own country as worth serving, but your pity is appreciated
True. Your earlier statement was ambiguous concerning this. This is why I started the sentence with “if”.
and youll continue to have the option to do so regardless of whether your government continues to threaten its citizens into doing so
Also true. But if I had to defend my country, the most effective way to do it would be as a part of a trained and coordinated effort, not as some loner seeking a Hollywood - style “heroic sacrifice”.
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Could you elaborate on this line of thought?
I cannot tell if you are suggesting a professional standing army or something else entirely.
